Vital Signs

For years on end she had written
of all that in her was hidden
and everything she saw
while observing her surroundings,
about all the things
that filled her with awe.

She wrote about both big and small,
about all things she could recall
until the fateful day it stopped,
and she with nothing left to say
felt inspiration melt away,
and her faithful pen she dropped.

She was a Poet full of life,
her words could slice just like a knife,
but now her voice was silent;
as the Poet now seemed dead,
a death she felt with utmost dread,
sudden although not violent.

She checked her vital signs
of mind and body and other kinds,
and they all seemed to function;
her brain, her lungs, liver and heart
seemed still to play the same, old part
they’d played since creation.

But something inside her had died,
she felt it, she sat down and cried
and with familiar movements then
she reached out, as she was wont to do
to the object which she always knew
could comfort her; the pen.

But setting it to paper proved in vain
although she tried again and again,
no words would form although she was
with her emotions overwhelmed,
and then to her did suddenly dawn
reality, however harsh.

The Poet’s death had stolen away
her inspiration with a sway
of sudden emptiness;
she was a human, still alive,
but no more Poet, that part died
and left her pathless.

When she her vital signs observed,
she left the most important one unheard –
What makes a Poet a Poet
and from others thereby set apart
(it’s not to be found in the mind, but in the heart) –
that part was dead.

Returned to humanity again
she sought inspiration all in vain,
she could not revisit the past,
and so she moved on reluctantly
mourning her lost creativity,
stolen so dreadfully fast.

Her heart now had adjusted speed
to beat as human hearts do beat,
not stirred with emotionality,
not much aware of the mundane,
far less of true art (which seems plain
to eyes void of imaginuity).

The Poet’s vital signs had waned,
just human ones remained,
and as awareness thereby fell
from her before observant eyes
she could no more distinguish lies
from truths; and all was well.